An Introduction

Hi Everyone, my name is Suzanne Cabot (you can call me Sue) and I am a "music enthusiast". What does that really mean? Maybe someday we'll dig into it. But just for today I would like to introduce myself to the world of blogging and you. I am 23 years old, graduated from UMass Lowell in June of 2007 with a BA in Music Business and an English Minor. I currently work for a relatively small record label, Rounder Records, in Massachusetts.
Now, like most people in college, even though I had decided that I was interested and enthusiastic when it came to the Music Industry I still did not know where to go from there. I seriously considered law school to become a big time entertainment lawyer. I created a business plan for a free music industry publication that would allow me to write as a career and feel like I was providing something useful to society. I thought about music therapy and concert promotion in conjunction with my part-time position with Aveda. I tossed around lots of ideas in my head. All I knew was that I wanted to be a part of the world, not living off it. Always learning, always growing and always pushing myself to think about things differently even if it seemed totally way of base.
After walking across the concert hall stage at UMass, I interned with Rounder in the Sales & Marketing department. The internship was pretty basic: promo mailings, formatting spreadsheets, posting tour dates on Rounder.com, and working on several other tedious yet very important projects. I learned a lot but mostly from conversations with the employees over lunch. After leaving my internship in September I continued working for Aveda and soon after picked up a temp position with Bose Corporation for their inbound call center. They hired about 150 temps just for the holiday season, pretty crazy, but met some pretty awesome people. After being laid off in January, Bose took me on for another temp position with the Computer Information Services department. Technically, the position was called a "Course Translation Administrator" which ultimately meant I executed the translation of the text for SAP courses. No, I don't speak other languages. Let's just say it involved a significant amount of copy and pasting. Unfortunately, the project that we had for worked months on, was canceled in mid April.
A week later I received an e-mail from the Sales and Marketing assistant at Rounder. During my time away I had kept in touch with Rounder, met up for lunch when I could, and made sure I let them know what I was up to. Just thought it was a good way to keep myself in the back of their mind, plus I enjoyed working with them and kind of considered them friends if anything.
Anyway, the Sales & Marketing assistant at the time informed me that she was inclined to look for employment elsewhere and that she had recommended me to the Executive VP for the position. I can't tell you the excitement I felt, I thought I would burst. So to make a long story short, I went through the interview process and was offered the position. I gladly accepted and have been happily (and quite clumsily) tripping my way through learning the music business from my Sales & Marketing post.
So why the blog you ask? Well, back to the paragraph I wrote previously about all the wonderful ideas I had about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Lately I have been wondering where to go next from my post at Rounder Records. Granted, I am not complete with this step in my journey, but what was to be my ultimate goal? I want to teach. I have become, how should I say it without sounding like a snot, slightly turned off from the business aspect of the music industry. I know, it doesn't seem to make sense, but I have never been the type of person to fight over the all mighty dollar. I work because I like to, well the bills need to get paid as well, but mostly it's because I like to. I wanted to be able to inspire myself and maybe some others while I'm at it. I didn't want to be chained to a desk but still have to be able to keep myself up to speed with the industry, while at the same time studying the past.
While meeting with my undergrad adviser from UMass, I tried to really pin down what my next steps should be for moving forward with my education and my career. I thought about being able to teach about the history of the Music Industry, how it started, where it's been, what was said and where it brought us today. How the past affects our future. He directed me to the American Studies program and pinpointed a couple of schools. This program would allow me to write, to teach, and to keep up with the changes in the music industry while still celebrating the past.
So still, why the blog? Because I love to write and I love to study the industry. I love to link the industry to society, note the marketing opportunities and see where some things succeed while others fail. How does the industry affect different generations and how do those generations affect the industry. How far has the industry come from where it began to here, holding the key to it's success (or failure). This is my idea of good time I must admit.
So I apologize for the long - winded life story, but I like for people to know that I am average and must say that my position at Rounder can almost be blamed on luck. I have aspirations just like most people and would like to be able to speak up about my opinions and observations concerning the industry that I am most passionate about. Feel free to play devil's advocate.